Food Council: Exploring new flavour
The Food Council recently met with Chef Barry and visiting Chef Julien from Chapter One.
Earlier in the day, during Prep lunch, Chef Julien led a Curious Kitchen taster session, encouraging children to explore foods from the four taste groups: umami, sour, salty and bitter. As always, pupils were encouraged to step outside their comfort zones and try something new, and Chef Julien was impressed by their enthusiasm and willingness to taste everything on offer. Perhaps the promise of a small sweet treat helped as an extra incentive!
As usual, Food Council members had spoken to their classes beforehand about the menus and brought along feedback, including likes, dislikes and suggestions for future dishes. The children showed a good understanding that not everyone will enjoy every item on the menu, and there was a brief discussion about less popular dishes that could potentially be tweaked or improved. Overall, the consensus was very positive, with all classes generally happy with the menus and very little needing to change.
Recent menu additions proving particularly popular include hot chocolate and biscuits for morning snack, baked potatoes with a choice of toppings at lunchtime, and the Meat-Free Monday vegetable curry.
The children’s wish list and suggestions included lemon drizzle cake, the return of hot dogs, proper sausage rolls instead of pinwheels, a wider selection of fruit, sushi and steak.
Dislikes were also discussed, with some children voicing their disapproval of vegetables being “hidden” in cakes – a strategy that remains largely unpopular!
The group also talked about budget constraints and the importance of seasonal food. The chefs explained that fruit and vegetables are significantly more expensive when bought out of season, as they need to be imported. There was also agreement that long-distance food transport is not ideal for our environmental footprint.
For the final discussion point, the children asked whether there could be alternative options for birthday treats. It was agreed that suggestions would be gathered from the Food Council and a decision made for next term.
As ever, Chef Barry provided something delicious to finish the meeting – this time an impressive carrot cake. Once everyone had enjoyed a slice, Barry surprised the children by revealing that in-season celeriac was one of the ingredients… and that it had also featured in the mashed potato they had enjoyed at lunch.
